Oh, I think they maybe wake up earlier, and can see better in the dark, than we think.
My rooster often crows way before there's any hint of light out.....
.....my friend says they think their crowing makes the sun come up...lol.
I don't let mine out before well after sunrise tho....too many things hunting at dawn....and mine are confined to a run.
Some chooks either have night vision or something close to it. Mostly I can rely on them not getting up to any shenanigans unless there's enough moonlight, but there's been a few odd hens I've shifted to new cages overnight (broodies etc) who have found their way back to their old cage in pitch black, despite numerous obstacles being in the way, or have rearranged themselves within a cage without light into new nesting boxes or perching positions. Can't be memory alone and can't be their sense of positioning either. (Whatever you call that location sensing/bonding trait). Some of these journeys took some careful acrobatics, not something they could do by touch or memory alone, especially given that usually those hens had never been shifted overnight nor been in the cages I moved them to.
Overall my chooks are usually up at or around the very beginning of dawn but things like rodents getting around in the cage can get them up sooner.
As for the roosters, when it comes to night-crowers, it often has more to do with learned or inherited behavior than light levels. If they were in a nearby country maybe their timing would be right but here it's not, and it unsettles the hens and potentially draws predators (not to mention causes the deaths of any neighboring roosters who are within earshot and decide to 'holler back' but happen to live in coops too close to houses.)
I've also routinely found my hens try to sidle away from night-crowers even if it means falling off the perch. Makes sense; it's night time, they're trying to hide away and sleep, at their most vulnerable, and some genius decides to scream their exact location to the world at large, repeatedly. They're prey animals, and they know it. I've also noticed these sorts of roosters like to perch above or between hens; almost like they're using them as peripheral bait or body shields, lol. I had one male given to me who didn't last more than a month or so because he would crow all night, every night, nonstop, only silent for as long as it took him to draw breath for the next crow. He started around 7PM, soon after dark (it was summer when I had him). Great stamina, too bad he used it at the wrong time. If you don't mind them crowing at night, good for you (and them I guess).
Best wishes.
It'd be kinda hard to miss...
